Saturday, May 11, 2013

Coffee and green coffee bean extracts are by no means the only way by which you are exposed to mycotoxins. Corn, for example, is likewise a favorite for the toxic mold. The same goes for almost all other grains. Common routes of exposure are, amongst others cereals, breads, wines, and even mils and meats (of swine ad turkey, not chicken; Duarte. 2010)

36%, 32%, 10%, and 16% these are the SuppVersity Figures of the week and the percentages of green coffee bean supplements (remember the chlorogenic acid news in Thursday's installment of the Science Round-Up) that were contaminated with Ochratoxin A, ochratoxin B, fumonisin B1 and mycophenolic acid, respectively.

These poisonous substances are produced by fungi that form during (inproper) storage and are suspected to inhibit protein synthesis, damage macrophage systems, inhibit particle clearance of the lung, and increase sensitivity to bacterial endotoxins... ah, I almost forgot ochratoxins also wreak havoc on your hormones (Frizzell. 2013).

So far for the bad news, now the good one: According to the researchers calculations even with most contaminated of the 50 products they the average consumer who adheres to the suggested dosing protocol will still be well within the tolerable weekly intake (TWI) of 120 ng/kg body weight per week and
tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 2000 ng/kg body weight per day for ochratoxin A and fumonisin B1, respectively (these values were estimated by the EU Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) and the European
Food Safety Authority (EFSA) - corresponding values of the "well-meaning" FDA or any other US government agencies are - as usual - not available).

Let's get to our androgen threesome

SuppVersity readers know: Tea is not only good for your prostate (learn more), it can also help you lose weight (read more)

Testosterone replacement improves prostate issues (Ko. 2013) -- Contrary to what common "wisdom" will tell you scientists from the Yeungnam University College of Medicine in Korea can tell you that the 17 out of 46 patients who suffered from lower urinary tract symptom before they underwent TRT using intramuscular injection of 3 months bases injection of testosterone 1,000 mg undecanoate over a year achieved significant improvements (decrements) on the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS).

Needless to say that "[d]uring the median follow up of 15.1 months, no patients experienced
urinary retention, BPH-related surgery, or admission for urinary tract
infection".

BPA and low testosterone, you better know what to look at (Zhou. 2013) -- Talking about testosterone, there is finally some relatively reliable human data on the effects of BPA exposure on the hormone levels in men.

As you can see in figure 1 the effects would go unnoticed, if you do not test for free hormones, but just checked the amount of total testosterone. How you can recognize that from the data? Well, the figures above the bars are the p-values. All that are >0.5 would suggest that this effect is statistically non-significant, so that every study not looking at things like the free androgen index (FAI) or the free testosterone levels (FT) will miss the 15% and 10% reduced levels of the latter and conclude: That it does not make a difference, if your serum contains 3.198 or 0.276mg/L as it was the case in the exposed and non-exposed subjects in this study from the Shanxi Medical University, because BPA won't harm you anyway.

The fermented solution to all problems androgen? (Chiu. 2013) Monascus bacteria that is used to ferment red mold rice, a traditional spice that is consumed throughout Asia could prevent androgenetic alopecia, benign prostate hyperplasia and prostate cancer.

The results of a recent study from the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the National Cheng Kung University Medical College clearly suggest that the way in which a monascus extract
suppressed baldness in male B6CBAF1/j mice

The effect was dose-dependent and was observed with 0.5-3% of the extract in the rodent diets. While it is not unlikely that the results will translate into human studies, it should be obvious that at least for the >0.5% doses, supplementation will be necessary.

Irrespective of these latest study results, previous research indicates that Monascus-fermented products have many functional secondary metabolites, including monacolin K, citrinin, ankaflavin, and monascin and these have been shown to possess anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, cholesterol-lowering effect, and antitumor activities. Probably all of you will be familiar with at least one of them: Red Yeast Rice, the natural statin.
And if you are not into spices or extracts, there are also other foods and even wines that are fermented with Monascus.

That's it for today: I know ladies, with today's focus on the male hormones, I owe you (big time?). But don't worry, there are also a couple of Facebook News, you may be interested in

Omnipresence of "healthy" Subway sandwiches correlates w/ obesity rates - "Countries with the highest density of Subway restaurants such as the USA (7.52 per 100,000) and Canada (7.43 per 100,000) also tend to have a higher prevalence of obesity in both men (31.3% and 23.2%, respectively) and women (33.2% and 22.9%, respectively)." (read more)

Understanding the neurological side effects of statin drugs - US scientists observed unusual swellings within neurons, which the team has termed the "beads-on-a-string" effect (read more)

DHEA supplementation at 25gm/day to restore female fertility - A recent study from Turkey would suggest that this could actually work (read more)

If that's still not enough, come back tomorrow for another serving of the latest news from the realms of exercise, nutrition and health sciences, here at the SuppVersity! In the mean time, enjoy your weekend, everone!

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